Really, Really
by AHigherOctave
Summary: His lip quivers. I know the answer before he speaks it, "No."


**Summary: **His lip quivers, and I know the answer before he speaks it. "No."

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Hannah Montana, if I did I wouldn't be posting fanfic for it.

Really, Really

I cry against my better instincts, the ones that tell me strong is the only thing I should ever be. These small moments where I show my weakness, they only ever end in heartbreak.

He looks back at me again. His eyes don't have they're former glitter when I stare into them. They don't shine and sparkle and laugh without him saying anything at all like they used to when they turned to me. Instead he looks older than his years, so tired that he must have lived a million years before this moment. And this is just another one that will make him even wearier, make it even harder for him to carry on.

They don't try to comfort me. They just see me for what I am. Maybe I'm pretty, maybe I'm kind of smart, but it's not enough to stun them. They've had too much access to real beauty for too long to be fooled by my carefully cut hair and my shimmery green eyeliner and the curves drawn on by my clothes. They know amazing intellect, conversations so deep I can't even dream them. And they know that they traded in what was true, honest, and real love for an imposter, one that wishes it could be as profound as that was just for an instant, one that is simple in the worst way. It isn't simple in the way that it works effortlessly like it was meant to be. It's simple that it's just plain old platonic love. It's not passionate, it's not giving…It's just there. It's a love of 'what if's and missed chances. If it wasn't it wouldn't feel like she was still here in the room with us, waiting for him to admit he should have been with her. She would have left him so long ago.

* * *

We were in California when they got married. He was laughing lightly as he downed a margarita I had ordered him. He always laughed when he was tipsy, even when there was nothing funny about the situation. The picture the waitress took of us under the flamingo sign at the front of the restaurant is still sitting on our mantel. She'd held it in her hands, smiling tightly, pregnant with her first child. What should have been his. She put it down gently, trying to cover up the look on her face. She had cringed ever so slightly when she did it like it had burned her. I saw it though, and I think she knew.

She idled over to the cold beige leather sofa, looking up at me where I stood in the archway to the kitchen. She told me then that she'd been in London promoting her new book and he'd had a press conference. It hadn't been planned but it had happened. The two of them just feel together. Their meeting in New York and wedding had followed in the same way a month later, that February.

I hugged her, so she couldn't see my face. It was the only way I could complete the sentences I was about to speak. I was really, really happy for her. I'd never loved him anyways.

She was so glad I felt that way, because she'd thought it would hurt us. And she didn't want to be the cause of our misery when we obviously loved each other so much.

We were so happy though, how could she come between us? I loved him, more than anything. I'd do anything for him.

She'd looked like I slapped her then, and she'd turned away. She'd told me she was pregnant. They were going to have a baby.

I don't remember what I said, but it must have been very forced or contrived. She let herself out not long after, before he came home from work. And we never called after that, all I got was a card that Christmas from the two of them, grinning merrily on the cover even the newborn baby boy, cut out into the shape of a snow globe. I'd hung it over our archway with all the other cards, right next to his parents' ugly over glittered one that sung. Late at night, when he thought I was asleep on the couch and he'd finished proofing the latest manuscript I saw him stare at it though. He'd touched his thumb to the bottom of the sparkly blue base, looking at her. I stirred on the sofa, and he'd jumped. I didn't want him to cry over her in front of me, and I was afraid if he thought I wouldn't see him that he might.

All the snow globe cards after got thrown into the fireplace and burned before he ever set eyes on them. This last year as we stood admiring the cards he turned to me, "How come she never sends us anything anymore?" He looked thoughtful for a moment, "I send her one every year. I send her a letter with them too. Just so she knows." I wondered if he'd confessed his love for her in any of these notes. I wondered if her husband got to them before her like I did.

* * *

This year we had a holiday party the night of Christmas Eve. We decorated the house with wreathes and holly and beautiful white lights glistening. It appeared to be the house of two happy newlyweds just bursting to have a family, and if anybody saw it any differently they didn't lead on. I was drunk when I stumbled into the kitchen around 11 that night to refill my champagne flute. His cell went off, playing "Handlebars" by the Flobots. It was a number I didn't recognize. I thought maybe it was his brother, confirming that his flight from Minneapolis was indeed canceled until the morning. I'd no sooner picked it up when I heard the voice. "Oliver," It breathed and I froze, stiff as a rod in my pretty red strapless cocktail dress. "Are you there?"

I didn't respond and I heard her yelp into the phone. It sounded like maybe she was drunk too. I could hear people in the background there too. Maybe she wore a similar dress, except it would have been in green if I knew her at all. A nice dark forest green that would bring out her beautiful blue eyes, and she'd walk out into their living room the same way I had that night. Looking at her perfect life and wishing she could trade the man standing at the end of the stairway who was waiting to take her hand and, just for once since she was twenty-one, be really truly ecstatic. "I'm sorry I didn't call last year," She choked out. "I know you left me the number then too, but he saw me open it. And I couldn't, he would have known. I think he knows anyways." Knows what? I wanted to ask but I knew if she heard my voice she'd hang up. I wanted to be sure, once and for all.

"Oliver? Are you still there?" She sniffled into the receiver, I followed this with silence. "Oliver, I know you're there. I can hear you breathing." I felt hot tears fall down my cheeks as I waited. "I'm sorry I left you that summer in the airport. I just couldn't leave Benji with him like that. I love you so much, I didn't know how much then." I still didn't speak, now not because I didn't want to but because Oliver had cheated on me. Oliver Oken was going to walk out on me without so much as a note on the fridge to say good-bye but he'd been rebuffed at the last minute. He'd probably just told me he'd had to work late at the office when he came home. And I believed him. I'd thought of doing it so many times but I'd always prided myself on being physically faithful if nothing else. "I'll leave him," She offered desperately. "I'll really, really leave him. Tonight if you want me to, we can meet in Italy like you always wanted to. I know you don't love her. And god, I love you so much, Oliver." There was another pause on the other side. "Please talk to me, please."

I felt myself shaking and I stuttered into the Blackberry, "Never call here again." Before I could listen to the sharp intake of air or the shriek or whatever followed I threw the phone into the wall and watched it shatter into a million little pieces.

* * *

He was drunk when he found me in our bedroom an hour later. His shaggy hair plastered to his forehead with sweat from dancing. He hadn't even realized I was gone until he'd wanted a warm body to sleep with, I'd bet anything. He knew from the look on my face. "You talked to her," He said soberly, all that liquid courage gone in a second, and I nodded. That was when the tears started to fall. And here I am still sitting on the floor looking up at him.

"You were going to leave me," I state and it's his turn to nod. He slides down onto the lightly colored wood next to me. He'd wanted the bedroom to be blue with a light yellow rug. I'd said no, it would have been something she'd loved. "I never even tried to contact him after... they got together." I was going to say we but it had been a lie, he'd always been there at first. Just like her.

"I know. I kept our phone records." At first I start to shout out on the offensive, I stop myself realizing he did it so I wouldn't find out about her. I should be offended by this too, I think. I'm not though. I would have done the same thing if I'd had the courage.

"When?" I mumble, and he looks at me again. He actually looks the most gleeful he has in years now. It's over. People split up when they have affairs. And he's happy.

"Three years ago, right after the baby's first birthday." He smiles at me genuinely for the first time in years. He didn't even bother faking a smile like that the day we got married. "I thought it would change her for me, being with Jake." I shudder at his name but Oliver still speaks. "It was almost like it was better though. Losing her made me love her even more." And when he glances at me his chocolate eyes are caring and tender, more so than I can even remember seeing them.

"She wants to leave him for you, she said," I tell him. He deserves happiness after all these years of hidden sadness. We both do.

"Don't worry about it," He says, and he slings an arm around my shoulder.

"Did you ever really, really love me?" I ask, looking at the floor. Our ugly brown floor, except that he'll be gone soon and it'll just be mine.

His lip quivers and I know the answer before he speaks it, "No."

"I knew," His head falls onto my shoulder and I feel him wracking with sobs. I pull him into my arms as he cries.

"I'm sorry," He pleads. "I'm really, really sorry."

"It's okay," I tell him honestly as his body shakes. "We don't choose who we fall in love with."

* * *

It's a little more than a week later now that I'm finally brave enough to face him. I met her and Benji at the airport with Oliver on Christmas. I saw the way they looked at each other and how much still resounded between them after all these years, and I wanted that chance too. I wanted to give him time though. I wouldn't just be his rebound girl. After a week, I can't resist anymore though. She'd shoved the address of the Connecticut house in my hand as she'd hugged me goodbye. I think she meant it as an apology, but I'd already forgiven her. Still I figure it's time I put the paper to good use. After all, it should have ended up in my hands years ago.

As I ride along the old private road in my rental Prius, I'm amazed by the amount of snowfall. Coming from California and Tennessee I've never seen much before, except little bits on vacations. It's like something out of a movie, a good omen that was never there throughout my marriage. I approach the old mansion outside of Greenwich. It was something she must have hated. It's big and old and overpriced, exactly what she would label pretentious. I smile, loving it immediately. Just as she and Oliver would love the old Victorian house on Cape Cod he's been telling me he plans to buy for them, and the blue-walled bedroom. I've talked to the both of them every night this last week, each time more cherished than the last. I have real relationships with two people I really love again, not having to pretend with either of them for the first time in years. It's more than I've hoped for since high school. And yet, here I am at his doorstep trying for more. I rap the knocker only once, almost afraid this all might disappear and I'll wake up to the cold, numb life I've been living all along.

He rubs his eyes on the sleeve of his dark blue bathrobe as he opens the red painted wood minutes later. His blond hair is still sticking up from being on his pillow. He actually sees me after a few seconds. He looks me up and down in disbelief, no longer needing to rub the sleepies out of his eyes to wake up. "Miley," I still take his breath away. I don't even speak his name but move in to kiss him. And Oliver's right, it doesn't change anything, him being with Lilly all those years, having Benji. I only love him more as I run my hands through his unkempt hair and feel his hands pull my hips to him. It only insures that I'll never let him go. He pulls back to look at me again, and he grins. A cocky, narcissistic grin I've missed too much for my own good over the years.

"I'm really, really in love with you," He tells me quietly, leaning his forehead against mine.

Finally.

**AN: **Hope this wasn't too confusing. I didn't want to use her name until the end though. Who did you think it they all were until I named them? Especially Miles and Lils, I was trying to confuse you about which one was which. So, this was my attempt at a non-traditional Jiley Christmas story. Tell me what you thought. Or don't. I'm contemplating doing a mistletoe one for this couple. I think Miley would appreciate the cliché of it all.


End file.
